Yeah, the 'time sink' argument applies perfectly to modern gaming, just like it applies perfectly to modern television series. A good timed movie is less than two hours, offers enough story and interpretations for years, thus is easy to learn but hard to master similar to an arcade game. Television series and modern games artificially stretch their durations with iterations and/or continuous open narrative, which holds a promise that the storyline, i.e. the downloadable content, is to be continued like in a soap opera.
I always loathed series like 24, which are precursory to all modern television shows, filling its one hour with dreary material, which should be cut out immediately. Bauer's escape gets interrupted by three 5 minute-long phone calls to his wife, like the plain vanilla zombie apocalypse "story" of TLOU is interrupted by stupid side-quests. Nah, if it only was the interface... but I agree with Devil's mourning after linearity in games.
Open world, a soap opera equivalent in video games, is probably the worst system to tell a story. In my opinion, the more freedom you get, the tougher it gets to tell a compelling story. You either get lost in long, passive, Kojima-style cutscenes, or have to work endless side requirements off, to get on with your story, which is probably papert-hin to begin with. There are some exceptions like Ultima Underworld, System Shock, Deus Ex and their followers, which introduced some interesting concepts to make an interface more playable. You could use weapons/items in your own way, even contrary to their intended use. But exciting gameplay mechanics don't translate instantly into exciting story telling.
